Evolution of User Services

On a regular basis, SCD will review and evaluate all of its user services to ensure they match user needs. New services are essential in an evolving cyberinfrastructure. As they become available, they will be prioritized and offered so researchers can easily, securely, and efficiently use SCD's resources. Input for the evolution of SCD's user and enterprise services will come from a variety of sources, including:

• SCD user forums, visits to universities, biennial user conferences, user committees, direct contact with principal investigators, and one-on one contact with users via phone or e-mail
• SCD's Advisory Panel
• Computing in Atmospheric Sciences Workshop, organized by SCD
• UCAR's Information Technology Committee and its advisory committees
• Collaborations and information exchanges with peer centers
• NSF reviews, NSF Geoscience strategic plans, other NSF-sponsored review committees, and nationally recognized reports
• Birds-of-a-feather sessions at relevant national and international conferences and workshops

SCD has established processes and procedures for tracking supercomputing service levels such as reliability, maintainability, serviceability, and system-wide and application-specific performance. To ensure a "best practices" approach, SCD will enhance these procedures and establish service-level targets, in concert with appropriate committees.

Because SCD foresees a continuing evolution in NCAR's computational environment, SCD will guide users through these changes by implementing an outreach program to identify the needs of model development groups using NCAR high-performance computers as well as researchers using NCAR community models at remote locations.

To deliver these services effectively, SCD will:

• Participate and collaborate in model-specific programmer and software engineering meetings
• Create training programs to increase user knowledge and skill
• Support major scientific computing and data campaigns